My sister and I
I’m three years older than my next sister down, and growing up we were very close even if my dad did play us off against each other in an effort to vie for his attention. It didn’t help matters much that she was Dad’s favourite by far (read, she got much less beatings than I ever did), or that he forced me to always have her tag along when I visited my friends making me rather resentful towards her. So I would blackmail her given the smallest opportunity / naughtiness on her part – eg. I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me for this. Having a spectacularly violent father as our example (which is another page worth but I’m not going there today besides to say he’d broken some of my mother’s limbs, he’d thrash me at least once a week with one of his boots or belts (I got to choose the weapon), and towards the end of it all he’d regularly rape my mum – not to mention the other wives with their children he had living with us in a true (illegal) polygamous situation), when sis and I fought it would often degenerate into some kiddy violence (and don’t be fooled because we’re girls) – mostly me on her because I was, after all, three years older with a grudge.

I’m about 13 when my mum finally gets the nerve to leave my dad. He insists on displaying his true bastard colours and chase us across the country - we do eventually escape by all of us changing our names and going underground (of course, we kids were under 18 so couldn’t legally do it – we were going to school for years and I even started uni with aliases).

Come the teenage years and the tables are turned – sis is now my size and I’m the one who’s getting the black eyes / pretty bruising. Surprisingly I find myself unwilling to fight back now that we’re older (maybe I figured it’s her turn to have a go)… so instead of putting up with her uncontrolled violence and ‘rolling with the punches’, I move out at 15 and refuse to speak to her for just over three years.

Roll forward to when I’ve just turned 19, sis is 16, and we’re starting to slowly make amends. We’re finally talking again but with heaps of arguments about boundaries – guess we were finally dealing with the issues of the last few years.

Then one night that February I was driving home, past the local fish ‘n chippie, and I see an ambulance parked there. Remembering my sister lives just around the corner, I think “hope that’s not there for her. And if it is, I hope she’s okay”. WTF? Why would I think that? Turns out she was coming out of the shopdoor with her tea, getting into the car on the sidewalk side, when a car crossed the medianstrip, hit the car she was getting into… which impact threw her against a concrete electricity pole, she hit her head against it and died on impact.
It’s now 14 years later and I am still extremely thankful we at least started talking again before that happened. I have so many regrets now because looking back, I reckon the reason we argued so much was because we were so very close but my dad effectively ruined our relationship with each other.

I was the one to have to tell my dad about my sister’s death – my mum was way too scared, sure he’d blame it on her somehow and kill her – the first time I’d spoken to him in about 10 years. Flash forward to today, I’ve only spoken to him once since then – and he was playing the same old games. That last time I left in tears, quite inconsolable, because we fell back into our original roles so easily – him the dominating, violent man and me the child who would always be too afraid to speak up for fear of my safety.

So it’s now been 20 years since we left him, and I’ve only spoken to him twice – he has had five new families since, all the women end up fleeing him with their children. His current family consists of my three half-brothers and a half-sister all under 10 still, and I’ve seen him play the oldest and next oldest off against each other in just the same way as he did me and my sister – and dad’s well into his 60s by now. Nothing’s changed. His latest wife has also confided in me that he beats the crap out of her regularly - but it seems she can take it?! The first and last time I saw the older half-brother, he was begging me to take him with me, away from his/my dad.

So even though I would always tell friends to talk to their family because you never know whether you won’t have that chance again… I doubt I’ll speak to my dad soon. He wasn’t invited to my wedding and he’ll probably never see his grandchildren. I’m currently waiting for his latest set of sons to grow up, have enough of it and finally kill him (they’re already big boys – half Samoan).
( Tiffany Aching 's bowl of oatmeal tried to stare her down and won, Mon 16 Nov 2009, 22:49, 3 replies)

How many kids has he sired?
And how does he afford all that child support??
(St Sepulchre's Belle tolled for thee on, Mon 16 Nov 2009, 23:04, closed)

The kids I'm aware of
Totals 12. I'm pretty sure there's more but I don't know of them.
And nobody ever asks for child support - they're so very glad to be rid of him, usually in circumstances where he doesn't know their whereabouts, that asking for child support will give him access to their location and lives again.
( Tiffany Aching 's bowl of oatmeal tried to stare her down and won, Mon 16 Nov 2009, 23:09, closed)

Christ, you've had it rough :(
Men like that don't deserve to be a part of society, which is easily said by a 3rd party but when it's directly happening within your own family it's much harder to admit to.

Glad you're away from it now, takes alot of courage to re-account it especially on a forum.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 17 Nov 2009, 8:23, closed)